ResQ
by AstroGirl
Summary: Yet another alien superbeing messes with Crichton's life. A crossover with ST:TNG. Note: this is set after 'Bad Timing' and was written before the miniseries came out, so it should now be considered AU.


**Res-Q  
by AstroGirl **

Q was bored. Bored, bored, _bored_. He'd idly considered pestering Jean-Luc some more, but the human had been so _grumpy_ lately. And not the amusing kind of grumpy, either. Of course, he could always pop in at some point on the spacetime continuum when El Capitan was in a more entertaining state of mind, but somehow he simply couldn't be bothered. Perhaps the miserable creature's mood was infectious. Hmmph. What an utterly disgusting thought.

It's such a burden being omnipotent, he reflected. Everyone _thinks_ it's all fun and games, oh yes, and, all right, it sort of _is_. But when anything is possible, it becomes such dreadful work to make anything _interesting_.

And so he sat here—well, "sat" in a metaphorical sense, at least—idly poking holes in spacetime the way a bored child might poke holes in the sand with a stick, and reflecting on the sad realities of existence as a superior being.

After a while—it might have been a few minutes or a few centuries, but, really, who was counting?—the section of space he'd been playing with had become so unstable it was in danger of collapsing in on itself, and he _still_ hadn't thought of anything interesting to do. So he shifted himself a few universes over and kept on poking.

He was about to give it up and go interfere with some planet's natural development or something equally prosaic when, hello, what was _this_? Some idiotic creature had just fallen through that dull little wormhole he'd created while pondering whether it would be more entertaining to give time travel technology to the Klingons or to drop a monolith on some unsuspecting primitives and see how long it would take them to get the idea of hitting each other with bones.

He peered in a little closer. Ah, a human. They seemed to be _everywhere _these days. The multiverse was simply teeming with them. Bad design, Q thought, far too repetitive, but did anyone ever ask him? Bah. There were reasons why he usually stuck to just the one cosmos.

The poor little human looked frightened out of his wits. Understandable, considering the laughably primitive excuse for a spaceship he was piloting. "Send away your box tops for that one, Flash?" he muttered. Q briefly considered appearing in the pathetic craft and saying it to the pilot's face (well, all right, back), but for the moment it was more amusing simply to sit there and watch the show.

After a very short while (especially by Q's standards), he realized that this was going to be a very amusing show _indeed_. He manifested himself a big tub of popcorn and sat back to enjoy the fun.

Four years flew by. Q couldn't take his eyes away. The comedy! The tragedy! The sheer, ludicrous _absurdity_! Every time he'd start to grow bored and think about popping in just to shake things up a little, some ridiculous twist of fate would come along and do the job for him quite nicely.

The human was particularly entertaining, in a train-wreck sort of way. Indeed, after dealing with the self-inflated sanctimoniousness of a certain starship captain, the pitiful creature's utterly compromisable morals and complete inability to muster up enough self-delusion to maintain a sense of superiority were really quite refreshing. So Q was extremely disappointed when he finally managed to get himself killed (and without a backup this time, yet!).

Q do not stand for disappointment.

A simple snap of his fingers, and a reconstituted John Crichton stood before him, blinking in disoriented confusion as his poor human mind tried desperately to catch up.

"Wh— Where am I?"

Q sighed. So predictable. "Where does it _look _like you are?"

"Ummm... nowhere?"

They could have been anywhere, of course, but Q had opted for the literally timeless simplicity of the traditional white void. He thought it suited the whole "slightly-nearer-than-near-death experience" thing extremely well, even if Picard hadn't had the good taste to appreciate it. "Oh, well, close enough," he said.

"I was... I was..." Crichton peered at him. "Wait. Don't I know you?"

"I don't know. Do you?" Q paused. "Well, no, wait, that's a lie. I _do_ know. Being omniscient, by definition, I know everything, although, admittedly most of it isn't worth paying attention to. For instance, I know that you're about to launch into an incredibly tedious speech listing all the things which that have made poor little you so very confused and unhappy, finishing up with—" His voice took on a perfect mimicry of the human's speech, "Wait, I _do_ know you! You're a freakin' TV character!"

Crichton blinked again. "You _are _a freakin' TV character!"

"I've got news for you, Johnny-boy. You're not exactly all that real yourself. I could show you half a dozen universes where _you're_ the fictional character but, frankly, that would be dull, and explaining the metaphysics so that your tiny brain could grasp it would be even duller. Let's just skip the boring exposition, shall we, and cut right to the—"

"Where's Aeryn?"

Q smiled, rather predatorily. "Right to the chase."

Crichton's pulse pistol was out of its holder and pointed at Q with what Q supposed was an impressive speed for a human.

"Oh, please," he said. A languid motion of his hand and the weapon vanished from existence.

"Hey! Bring her back!"

He smiled with what he knew was an infuriatingly innocent expression. "Who? Aeryn or Winona?"

"Both of them!"

Q waggled a finger at him. "Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh! You only get one!"

Crichton sighed. "Godlike aliens," he muttered. "God, do I _hate_ godlike aliens." Then with what Q thought was a rather overdramatic air of long-suffering patience. "Aeryn. Bring back Aeryn. Please."

Q grinned. "Sorry. I didn't say _which _one you could have!" The pulse pistol was suddenly back in Crichton's hand. The human looked at it rather suspiciously, then aimed it at Q's head. "Oh, go on. Pull the trigger. See what happens." He grinned again.

Crichton looked at the gun, looked at Q, looked back at the gun. "You're really... him? Q? Extradimensional asshole, likes to pop in on the Starship _Enterprise_ and play practical jokes? Completely fictional character?"

"Oh!" Q put a hand to his chest. "You wound me!"

Crichton looked at the gun again, then holstered it with another sigh. "Man, this day is turning out even weirder than usual. All right. You like games, right? So this is some kind of a game. What do I gotta do? Go play Robin Hood? I _really_ hope that's not it, because, man, there are some of my shipmates I just do _not _want to see wearing tights."

"Oh, please. Give me credit for a little more originality than _that_! That game wasn't even terribly interesting the first time."

"That's because Picard beat you."

"You watch too much television, did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Yeah, my parents. All the time. 'You spend too much time in front of the boob tube, Johnny! Why don't you go outside and play?' You know what? Personally, I think the _Star Trek_ reruns did more to prepare me for my adult life than five years of little league. Now, I'll ask again: Where. The hell. Is Aeryn?"

"Ah, ah!" Q waggled a finger at him. "That would be telling!"

"Telling? What are you, three?"

Q decided not to even dignify that with a response.

"OK, so, what?" the human continued. "We're playing hide-and-go-seek, is that it? Or, no, I know, it's galactic keep-away. No, wait... 20 questions! Is she bigger than a breadbox?"

"Oh, I think I'll leave it to you to figure out the rules. Shouldn't be a problem for a big brain like yours, should it, Johnny-boy? What was it you've been claiming to be? Master of the secrets of the universe? It ought to be a—"

_Snap!_

* * *

The sound of Q's fingersnap still lingered in Crichton's ears as he suddenly found himself standing in the familiar confines of Moya's command. "No place like home," he muttered. 

A head whipped around, tentacles flying every which way. "C— Crichton?!" The look on D'Argo's face was almost comical. Hell, no, scratch that, it _was_ comical. Take your chuckles where you can get 'em, Crichton figured.

"Hi, D. Yeah, it's me."

"But you're... You were _dead_! I saw you!"

"Well, I'm alive now, anyway. You'd think you guys'd be getting used to this sort of thing."

For one brief, mildly disconcerting moment, Crichton thought D'Argo was going to leap forward and hug him, but apparently the Luxan was opting for the "third degree" response instead. "How did you get here? Where's Aeryn? And... who's that?"

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," chirped Q, who suddenly appeared to be standing right behind John.

"Man," muttered Crichton. "He's stealing my shtick. Like the headgames weren't bad enough!" He looked up at D'Argo. "To answer your questions: Don't know, don't know, and, believe me, you don't want to know. Where are we?"

D'Argo stared suspiciously at Q. "John, who _is_ this guy? Is he with you? Should we...?" He made a vague gesture that Crichton assumed was meant to be suggestive of some act of violence or other.

"Don't worry about him. He's harmless."

"Hey!" cried Q resentfully.

"Well, OK, not harmless, but there ain't nothing you can do about him, so don't worry about it for the moment. Where are we?"

"Um, on our way to see the Diagnosan."

"Uh-huh. Listen, can you ask Chi to call and reschedule her appointment? We gotta head back to the planet. Quagmire, or whatever it was."

"Qujaga," said D'Argo.

"Right, yeah. Qujaga."

"Um," said D'Argo, glancing at Q again. "OK..."

Q shook his head and made a "tsk, tsk" noise. "Colder!" he crowed, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

"This," said Crichton, "is definitely going to be one of those days."

* * *

"Would you like some more tea, Officer Sun?" The bald captain smiled at her pleasantly. 

"No, thank you. It was, uh, it was very nice, though." In truth, she'd liked it even less than that disgusting Earth beverage Crichton had called "kafee," but in her experience it was generally a good idea to be polite to ship's captains, even disconcertingly welcoming ones.

He sipped his. "My people have been working on a way to get you back to your own universe, but I fear if the entity known as Q _is_ involved, your return is unfortunately likely to be dependent upon his rather unpredictable whim."

Aeryn sighed. "I hate godlike aliens."

Picard nodded sympathetically.

* * *

"OK," said Crichton, giving Q a rather amusing look of annoyance. "You wanna give us a hint, then?" 

"But I just did! In fact, I'd say I'd given you several, if only you'd the brains to appreciate them."

"Yeah, yeah, OK. I'm a dumb human who's so incredibly primitive he still thinks digital watches are a really neat idea. So give me another hint."

D'Argo turned to Crichton, his brow furrowed. "Digital watches?" Crichton waved him to silence.

Q considered making a crack about the Luxan's own intelligence, but decided against it. There'd doubtless be plenty of opportunities for that later. Instead, he sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and tried to put things in words of one syllable for the poor little human. "Oh, very well. Let's see... A suitable clue, suitable clue... How about: she's gone where you spent the summer of '93."

"She's on Earth?" said D'Argo. Yes, just as he'd expected. Plenty of opportunity.

"Summer of '93," said Crichton. "Summer of... I had mono that year. I spent the entire summer in bed watching..."

Q raised an eyebrow, mentally urging him to fight his natural human tendency towards stupidity.

"...watching _Star Trek_ reruns!" Crichton finished. "I told everybody that it felt like I'd just spent two months on the Starship _Enterprise_So either she's lying in bed in my old apartment, or you've sent her..." The implications finally seemed to have filtered through his brain. "You sent her _where_?!"

"Where no one has gone before!" replied Q, grinning. "Well, no, not really. There were plenty of people there already. Really, the sheer human arrogance! Assuming that just because _you_ haven't been somewhere before—"

"You sent her _where_?! How the hell am I supposed to—"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll figure something out. After all, you got _here_, didn't you?" Crichton began to lunge toward him, but Q was gone before he'd moved more than a few microns.

"Who was that?" asked Noranti mildly, stepping into command just as he vanished. "And is he going to come back? I could make some more stew..."

Crichton sat down, put his head in his hands, and groaned. Watching from the next dimension over, Q just laughed. Playing with these people was almost too easy.

* * *

"...So, uh, that's where we have to go, I guess." Crichton looked around the table at his shipmates, who were regarding him with a variety of rather interesting expressions. 

"So, wait," said D'Argo. "Let me see if I've got this right. Some kind of superbeing who doesn't actually exist brought you and Aeryn both back to life, and now he's taken Aeryn someplace that _also_ doesn't exist, and you have to go and rescue her, but you don't know how to get there. Do I have that right?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it."

Chiana laughed. "That's the most fahrbot thing I've heard from you yet!"

"Which is saying something, yeah, I know. But, hey, we got Aeryn back from Katratzi. How much harder can this be?"

D'Argo scowled. "You should know better than to ask that question, John."

"Do you have a plan?" asked Stark eagerly.

"Well... Sorta. Einstein said that once I'd visited an unrealized reality, I could get back to it by keeping it firmly in mind. I managed it once. And I figure I've watched enough _Star Trek_ in my time..."

"Chiana's right," said Rygel. "That _is_ fahrbot."

"You got a better idea, Sparky?" Rygel opened his mouth to speak. "And don't suggest that we leave Aeryn where she is, because we do _not_ play that. Right?" Rygel shut his mouth again.

"_I_ think it sounds delightful," said Noranti. "I'll make snacks for the trip!"

The chorus of groans and protests was abruptly silenced as the ship lurched and the lights dimmed for a moment. "Pilot?" called John, half rising from his seat. "What's goin' on?"

Pilot's face appeared on the clamshell. "You want us to go back through a wormhole?!"

Crichton sat down again and sighed.

* * *

"I've made this far too easy for you, you know," said Q, watching Crichton scrawling equations on the floor. 

"Shut up," Crichton mumbled around a writing implement held in his mouth. The human didn't startle at Q's sudden appearance, Q had to give him that. Either a sign of steady nerve, or simple obliviousness. Q was voting for the latter.

"You're off by a factor of two there," he said in a bored tone.

"Where?"

"Just there!"

"Holy frell!" Crichton quickly scribbled out part of the equation he'd been writing.

"That would have been interesting."

"Not for long."

"Hmm. True. Of course, if you'd managed to reduce yourself to your subatomic components, I suppose I could always just bring you back again. Though that _would_ be cheating."

"Do you want something?"

"Yes. I want you to be more interesting more quickly!"

"Well, then give me a hand with these equations!"

Q grinned evilly. "If you're not smart enough to figure it out yourself, you're not smart enough to use it. Isn't that what Daddy Dearest said?"

"You guys get together and have Super-Alien conventions or something?"

"Oh, please. That pitiful creature was barely superior to _you_."

"Yeah, but at least _he_ had some manners. Help or leave."

"Oh, very well. I'll be back when you're doing something less incredibly boring."

"Just once," muttered Crichton, "I'd _like_ to actually do something boring." But Q had already gone.

* * *

"...So, you're really all-powerful?" 

"Mmm-hmm." He buffed his fingernails modestly against his shirt. Not that the Nebari could see it, of course, but her Luxan boyfriend was watching him quite closely.

"So you could... You could bring back my eyesight? Make these visions I've been having go away?"

"I _could_. But I can't imagine why I'd bother."

D'Argo growled at him, deep in his throat. Q turned to him with a sneering grin. "Hmm. Unnecessarily convoluted cranial area. Tendency to devolve into animal noises. Utter lack of anything resembling common sense. You know, you remind me of someone. Now, if only I could just think _who_..."

"D'Argo," said Chiana placatingly, and the Luxan took his hand off his weapon. She turned to Q, or at least in his general direction, and licked her lips in what he supposed was meant to be a seductive fashion. "There must be something you want. In... exchange." She moved her hips suggestively.

"Please. As if I'd be interested in sexual favors from a creature like _you_."

"Oh. OK, then." She gestured towards D'Argo, who was sadly discovering that looks couldn't actually kill unless you were a Q. "What about him?"

_"Chiana!"_

That reaction was amusing enough that for a moment he actually considered agreeing, just to prolong it. But, no, he had his pride. "Euugh! I'd sooner mate with.." He looked over at the Luxan. "...Well, with _anything_, really."

"The feeling's mutual," growled D'Argo.

"Oh, well," he said. "No deal, then. Sorry. Tootles!"

_Snap!_

* * *

Q looked back and forth between the two beings. "Well? Are either of _you_ going to grovel and beg me to do you a favor?" 

The old woman looked rather surprised by the question. "No. Why should we? What could you possibly do for us?"

"Well, for starters, I could remove that terrible stench!" Q waved his hand in front of his face as Noranti stepped toward him. "In fact, I could be easily persuaded to do that one for free."

Noranti immediately halted where she was and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. "No! Oh, no, no, no! It's mine. My scent, my odor, it's _mine_ and I won't let you take it!"

Q rolled his eyes. The Banik laughed. Q turned to him instead. "What about you? Poor, pathetic creature that you are. Stuck between realms, neither matter nor energy, with all the worst attributes of both. Surely _you_ want something. Your dearly departed back by your side, perhaps?"

Stark opened his mouth to speak, but Noranti cut him off, hurling herself bodily between them. "No! We don't want _anything_! Now, get out! Go! Shoo!" She emphasized the words with dismissive hand gestures, and her third eye blazed at him brightly. Incomprehensibly, he felt something weirdly akin to fear.

He sniffed disdainfully. "All right. Fine." And he was gone.

The Banik's voice followed him plaintively as he vanished. "I wasn't done thinking about it yet!"

* * *

Q looked at Rygel, then looked at Pilot, then looked back at Rygel. 

"Nah," he said. "Too easy." And disappeared again.

* * *

They were all gathered around the table. 

"All right," said Crichton. "That's the plan. I've worked out the equations—" He ignored Rygel's muttered, "you think." "—and we should be in the right area for the wormhole in a couple of days. D'Argo and I will go in _Lo'Laa_, find Aeryn, rescue her, and come back. Any questions?"

"Ooh, ohh, teacher pick me!" said Q, who was suddenly seated between Chiana and Noranti, waving his hand like an eager schoolboy.

Crichton sighed. He figured it was probably too much to hope for that Q would make himself scarce until the time came for him to show up and gloat over their inevitable frell-ups. "What?"

"Well, is it just me?" He leaned back and put his feet on the table. "Or is that plan a little, oh... vague?"

"You know, John," said D'Argo. "He kind of has a point."

"Whose side you on, D?"

"I'm just sayin'..."

Crichton turned back to Q. "You wanna give us another hint, feel free. You got nothing constructive to say, you can shut the frell up. Now." He looked around at the rest of them. "Any questions?"

"Why is it just you and D'Argo?" asked Stark. "Why don't the rest of us come?"

"Moya doesn't wanna fly through another wormhole," Crichton said patiently, "and I'm not gonna force her. Anyway, Chiana still can't see. She's better off staying here where it's safe..." Chiana made a small noise, and Crichton quickly amended that. "OK, relatively safe. And she's gonna need somebody to look after her, so..."

"But I could go!" said Stark eagerly. "I could help rescue her!"

"That's a sweet thought, Stark. But really, I think you can be more help staying here and looking after Moya. Make sure Rygel doesn't run off with her."

"You sure about that?" Q said in an annoyingly ominous voice. "I'd take along the fellow who can make sure you have a nice, easy death if I were you. Given the circumstances, you might need it."

"What circumstances?" said Noranti, echoing John's own thought, if not the horrible sinking feeling behind it.

Q grinned. "You'll see!"

"Damn it," said Crichton, staring at the empty space where he'd just been. "I _hate_ it when he does that!"

* * *

Aeryn let off a burst of phaser fire and ducked back behind the corner. She thought she'd gotten one of them, but it was hard to be sure. In any case, they at least had the enemy pinned down for the moment, until one of them managed to undo whatever that engineer with the strange eyewear had done to fuse the door at the end of the corridor closed. 

"What did you say these beings were called again?" she asked the Captain as he finished his own volley of shots and thudded against the wall next to her.

"Romulans," he responded grimly.

"Ah," she said. "Just wondering." She popped back around the corner to shoot at them some more.

* * *

"OK, D. You ready to do this?" Crichton sat at the controls of _Lo'Laa_, his gloved hands covered with... well, he really didn't like to think about the details. 

"Yeah," said D'Argo. "Let's do it. I want to get this over with so we can get Chi to the doctor and get back to what passes for normality in our lives."

"Right. Here we—" The ship lurched, bucked, and moved in ways John was pretty sure its designers had never intended it to move. "Whoa! What the...?"

"John! What did you do?"

"I haven't done anything... Holy frell!"

The giant eye peering in through the cockpit window blinked at them, then moved upwards to give them at look at one corner of a grotesquely smirking giant mouth. Then both features receded as the hand holding the ship moved backwards, perhaps to give Q a better view.

"This," said Crichton. "Is _not_ cool."

"This," said D'Argo, "is pretty frelled up."

Q smiled a deceptively pleasant giant smile. "I just thought I'd give you one more chance to reconsider the incredibly stupid thing you're about to do." Crichton didn't want to think about how they were hearing him across the vacuum of space. Just call it magic, he told himself, and be done with it. Worked for Maldis.

"I mean," said Q, leaning in closer and giving them a really unpleasant view up his nostrils, "you have given this careful thought, haven't you, Johnny-boy?" He didn't wait for an answer. "No? Tsk."

"Hey," said Crichton. "You ripping off the original series now? With the whole hand thing?" He made a motion intending to mimic the action of a giant hand gripping the _Enterprise_. "Should I be using, like... what was it? M-Rays?"

"Please." The face retreated a little, the smile morphing back into a smirk. "Apollo was a complete wannabe."

"Yeah, fine, whatever. We bow to your superior superbeing credentials. Now, will you put the spaceship down, please, so we can go rescue Aeryn? Which, need I remind you, we are only doing because _you_ set this whole stupid situation up in the first place?"

"Do you think anything would happen if I shot him?" D'Argo asked hopefully.

"Yeah. Unfortunately, it'd probably involve him turning you into a frog or something, so I wouldn't try it."

"I'm glad to see you have _some_ shred of common sense," said Q. "Even if you'd never know it from this suicidal venture." The enormous eyes shifted their gaze to D'Argo. "Did the human happen to mention at your oh-so-productive planning meeting just how incredibly risky this is? One wrong move, one misplaced decimal point, and... Well, you know what happens. Zhaan did make such a pretty light show at the end, didn't she?"

D'Argo growled, and Crichton laid a restraining hand on the Luxan's arm, leaving a small trail of slimy something on his sleeve. "Look, Colossus" he said, "Number one, I know what I'm doing..."

"Oh, really?" A giant eyebrow quirked up. Crichton ignored it.

"Number two, if you're that frickin' concerned about our safety, you could just bring her the hell back and we can all take our party favors and go home."

Q shook his head, which was rather disconcerting to watch. "Not gonna happen."

"Well, then, put the damn ship down and get out of our way!"

"It's not really like we have a choice, you know," D'Argo said, his voice slightly calmer again. "Not all of us can snap our fingers and travel through time and space."

"Oh, but you do have a choice." Q smiled. "You could give it up." He leaned in, one giant eye focusing on John. "Admit it. Doesn't some tiny, tiny part of you think you'd be better off without her? That she'd be better off without you? Don't you ever get the feeling that perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something? Hmm?"

"D'Argo. Shoot him."

"Umm..." D'Argo looked nervous. "Frog?"

Q moved his head back again and affected a look of boredom. "Oh, never mind. I can see you're not going to listen to reason. Very well. Good luck! Have fun!" He smirked again, hauled back his arm, and tossed the ship casually in the direction of the wormhole.

Crichton screamed. D'Argo screamed. Crichton wrestled with the controls. "Frell!"

And then they were in the wormhole.

* * *

Several arns later, D'Argo watched skeptically as they neared yet another wormhole exit. 

"OK," said Crichton, "this is it. Third time's the charm. No more wrong turns."

"I kind of liked that place with the green dancing girls," said D'Argo.

"That was the same place. Just about eighty cycles too early."

"Does that mean there are going to be green dancing girls?"

"Umm... Probably not. But the ship's shrink is kind of a hottie. In an annoying, I-feel-your-pain kind of way."

"Don't you need to turn here?"

"I am! I am! Geez, damned backseat wormhole jockeys..."

"It's just that, you know, the first time you nearly got us—"

"Hey, that was Q's fault! And don't distract me here. This is the tricky bit."

"Tricky" turned out not to quite be the word for it, as the ship lurched, spun, lurched, spun, spun the other way, and, just for good measure, lurched. D'Argo came very, very close to adding to Crichton's supply of Luxan DNA.

Then, suddenly, all was calm. Quiet. Dark. They were in empty space.

"So? Is this the right place?"

"I don't know D'Argo. I can't..." Crichton broke off as _Lo'Laa_ slowly rotated, and it immediately became clear that this area of space wasn't empty after all.

It was an oddly-shaped ship, respectably large, if no match for a command carrier, and quite possibly the cleanest, shiniest vessel D'Argo had ever seen.

"Yeah," said Crichton. "This is the place. Hailing frequencies open, D."

"Does that mean you want to call them and tell them we're coming?"

"Yeah. Don't worry. These guys are friendly. It'll be perfectly safe."

D'Argo didn't answer. He was busy peering at a large area of space that seemed to be shimmering. It looked a lot like the effect when _Lo'Laa_ engaged her invisibility field. He tapped Crichton on the arm and pointed. "Hey, John? What's that?"

"Oh, crap!" yelled Crichton as a sleek green ship rippled into being. "Tell me I did _not_ just say 'it's perfectly safe!'"

That, of course, was when the firing started.

* * *

"Well, well, well. This doesn't look good for our heroes!" 

Crichton looked up from the suddenly unresponsive controls and into Q's face. Well, it was mostly Q's face, except for having D'Argo's nose. And tentacles. He wondered if D'Argo was somewhere else right now looking like Q.

"Anybody ever tell you you're a real jerk?"

"Me? I just saved your miserable little life. Look." He gestured out a window.

Crichton looked. The threatening glow of a photon torpedo—or was it a quantum torpedo? He was a bit rusty on his Original-Recipe-vs-extra-crispy-Trek terminology—hung suspended about three feet away. Crichton swallowed nervously, caught himself doing it, and stopped. Never show fear in front of the godlike alien, he told himself. They can smell it. Like dogs.

"You want a thank you?"

"I want not to have to resurrect you from the dead a second time. This isn't a video game, you know. You don't get extra lives for racking up points." Q paused. "Not that you'd have very many points."

"Yeah, I'm sure it's really frelling easy to make amusing video game analogies for someone who has the cheat codes to reality. Cut the amusing pop culture crap and tell me what the _hell_ it is you want me to do!" He paused as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Pop culture crap. Geez, is it that annoying when _I_ do it?"

"Oh, yes," said Q with a grin. "Just ask any of your shipmates. I'm sure they'll be happy to tell you all about it. At length."

"Fine. I will. After we get out of here, get Aeryn back, and get home."

"Awfully confident, aren't you?"

"No. Just determined."

"All right, then. Good luck with the Romulans." Q snapped his fingers. D'Argo reappeared, looking confused. Time unfroze.

The torpedo blast hit.

* * *

Crichton opened his eyes, trying to ignore what felt like an entire regiment of Peacekeepers marching through his head. An annoyed-looking face with pointy ears and slanted eyebrows looked down on him. 

"I thought Romulans didn't take prisoners?" he said, weakly.

"That's Klingons," said the Romulan, and hit him.

Everything went black again.

* * *

Eventually, consciousness returned. Crichton peered up at the face above him, feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà vu until he realized that, despite the pointy ears, it actually _was_ a face he recognized. 

"Did you enjoy your nap?" asked Q.

Crichton sat up carefully, a hand cradling the back of his head. "That's a good look on you," he said.

Q ran a hand down his Romulan Fleet Commander's uniform with a flattered look on his face. "You think so?"

"Yeah. Very... bad guy." He looked around the cell he'd awoken in. Bare. White. Three tiny beds, one of which held a still-unconscious D'Argo. "Where's Aeryn?"

"Ah. Well, that's the question, isn't it?"

"Yeah, so what's the answer?"

"Well..." Q grinned his predatory grin, which somehow, John had to admit, was rather more disconcerting with the Satanic eyebrows in place, "You _are_ getting warmer."

At which point, two Romulans suddenly appeared and, taking no notice of Q whatsoever, shoved what appeared to be a semi-conscious prisoner into the cell, and just as abruptly left.

"Very, very warm," said Q.

The prisoner looked up.

"_Aeryn!_" She tossed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes and stared at him. It was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. "Aeryn!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "Do I know you?"

"Hot!" said Q, and vanished.

* * *

She looked up at Crichton, thinking in equal parts, "I knew he'd come!" and "The stupid frellnik always did have bad timing." 

"Help me up," she said in a pitiful voice. "Please."

"Sure, baby... It'll be OK now. We're here. We'll..." He bent down and offered her a hand. She took it and hauled herself upwards, leaning against him as if too weak to stand, her face lolling feebly against the side of his head.

"Shut up!" she hissed in the smallest possible whisper. "I just killed fifty-seven of these people, they're planning an extremely painful execution for me, this cell is probably monitored, and if they think you're my ally, they'll almost certainly kill you as well."

Crichton's eyes got wide, and he mouthed the word "fifty-seven," a rather proud look on his face. She wanted to smack him. Or kiss him. Or possibly both. Instead, she made a great show of regaining her balance. "Thank you," she said, with her most valiant attempt at an innocent smile. "My name is Chella. I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said to me before?"

She stood ready to step on his foot if necessary, but he'd pulled it together and was now doing a better acting job than her. "Uh... Aeryn. Somebody I knew. You looked like her. Sorry."

"That's all right." She sat down on one of the empty beds. Crichton sat back down on the other. They looked at each other. They didn't talk. D'Argo didn't wake up. Time passed.

This wasn't how she'd imagined things going after their conversation in the boat.

* * *

"Well," said Q, having finally given up on waiting for them to do something. "_This_ isn't very interesting." 

The human and the Sebacean whirled to face him. "You!" shouted Aeryn, instinctively reaching for a weapon she did not, at the moment, have. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh," said Crichton. "You've met."

"Yes, when he abducted me..."

"When I _saved_ you, you mean!" Q sighed. "How quickly these mortals forget."

She scowled. "Whatever. It's your fault I'm here, presumably it's your fault they're here, so now you can get us out."

Ignoring her, Q noticed Crichton looking nervously around the room. He waved a languid hand. "Don't worry about the security monitors. They aren't working at the moment. Rather like the rest of the universe, actually. Well, not so much not working as frozen. I thought we might take a little time out for a chat."

"So you froze time again," said Crichton. "Great. We're all really impressed. Now how 'bout taking the lady's suggestion and zapping us on home? We're done, right? We found Aeryn. Game over, we won, now we shake hands and go out for a pizza?"

Q sniffed. "'Found' is hardly the same as 'rescued.' And I _could_ help you escape from this cell, but that would be cheating, and where's the fun in that?"

"And watching us sit here staring at the walls is fun?" Aeryn countered.

"Besides," said Crichton. "You're telling me cheating isn't fun?"

"Hmm," said Q. "You have a point. All right. You get _one_ Get Out of Jail Free card. But only one!" After all, these people appeared to be _much_ more entertaining when they were in their own universe, anyway.

He unfroze time, plucked the three mortals out of the cell... and plopped them down in the corridor outside.

* * *

"The _hallway_?" muttered Crichton. "Oh, thanks. That's very helpful." He looked down at the still-unconscious D'Argo. "C'mon, D. Rise and shine." He bent down and shook the Luxan's shoulder. 

D'Argo's eyes fluttered a little, but didn't open. "Not now, Lo'Lann. Wake me up in the morning."

Aeryn grunted in annoyance. "We don't have _time_ for this!" She delivered a sharp kick to his ribs.

"Aaargh!" D'Argo instantly sprang up into a warrior's crouch, an effect that was rather spoiled by his immediately following it up by grabbing the back of his head and grimacing in pain. "What the— Where are we?"

"No place good," said Crichton. "And we _really_ don't have time to stand around chit-chatting about it."

"We've got to get to one of those transporter devices," said Aeryn. "That's how they brought me on board."

John shook his head. "No good. Won't work with the shields up. And even if they're down, if the _Enterprise_ isn't in range, or has _her_ shields up, we're screwed."

"Do I even want to know how you know all this?" said Aeryn.

"Probably not, no." He looked around the corridor trying hard to think. "We need to get to the shuttlebay."

"Fine," said Aeryn. "Where's that?"

"Uh... good question." Man, he'd never thought he'd be cursing himself for not being an even bigger geek than he actually was. Who knew owning a set of Romulan Warbird blueprints might be the sort of thing that would have a practical application one day? "Let's try..." He pointed down the corridor more or less at random. "This way."

Aeryn and D'Argo looked at each other and shrugged.

They made it about twenty motras before they encountered a Romulan. The startled look on the guy's Vulcanoid face was almost comical. The way Aeryn dropped him with a pantak jab before he could so much as go for his communicator was a thing of beauty. The fact that they were now in possession of his disruptor pistol was seriously reassuring. Crichton was starting to believe they might actually get out of this one yet. He was also starting to wonder why he'd ever thought Aeryn would need rescuing.

* * *

Four Romulans later, much to everyone's surprise, they actually reached the shuttlebay. 

"_Lo'Laa_!" D'Argo greeted the sight of his ship like a long-lost lover. "Oh, _Lo'Laa_, what have they done to you?" He stroked the scorch marks on her hull gently, entertaining vivid fantasies of polishing them away by wiping her with some Romulan's face.

"Worry about the paint job later, will ya?" said Crichton. "We gotta get out of here."

Aeryn looked at the ship skeptically. "Assuming it will still fly, how are we going to get those doors open?"

"You leave that to me," D'Argo growled as he climbed into the cockpit and primed the canon.

The explosion when the doors burst open was the first really satisfying experience he'd had in days.

* * *

There was a bad moment when the Romulans started firing at them, a very bad moment when the Warbird nearly followed them through the wormhole, and an _extremely_ bad moment when they took another wrong turn and briefly ended up within spitting distance of the Death Star. 

But eventually they made it home.

* * *

"So that's it?" Crichton looked at Q suspiciously. 

"Oh, you want more? I can accommodate that." He raised his hand as if about to deliver one of his patented fingersnaps. Crichton instantly began making frantic hand gestures for him to stop.

"No, no. That's cool, really. _Really._ It's just..."

"Yes?'

"I dunno... Isn't there supposed to be some kind of a _point_? Aren't you supposed to be, like, testing humanity or trying to teach us some great moral lesson or something?"

Q gave him a condescending smile. "Listen up, John-boy, this isn't _Star Trek_. I'm not here to teach you anything, and I'm _certainly_ not here to learn. I'm here to be amused for a while by your antics, and occasionally by your more entertaining sufferings."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're welcome," said Q, and was gone. Crichton was willing to swear his grin had vanished about a split second later than the rest of him.

* * *

"The Warbird is in sensor range now, sir." 

"All right," said Picard. "Remember, you're to shoot to disable, not destroy. I promised to see Officer Sun safely home to her own universe, and that's a promise I intend to keep. Number One, you'll be in charge of the rescue team..."

_Should I tell him?_, Q wondered briefly. _Naaaah..._

And he settled in to watch the show.


End file.
